Nunn wins 4th Tata Steel Studies Solving Competition

2/11/2013 – He was one of the older competitors, but John Nunn once again showed that his brain is in top shape by winning this tough competition by 43 points out of the maximum of 45, the highest score achieved in recent years (and four points more than his nearest rival). He has written a report for us, with an interesting astronomical image and three sample studies for you to solve.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

4th Tata Steel Studies Solving Competition

John Nunn

One of the attractive features of the annual Tata Steel tournament is that
it is not only about the top tournament. Of course, the main focus is on the
games of Carlsen, Anand, Aronian and so on, but there is plenty of other chess
taking place in Wijk aan Zee. First of all, there are the B and C groups, which
are interesting tournaments in their own right even if somewhat overshadowed
by the top group. There is also a wide range of amateur events in which several
hundred players take part, making the tournament hall a buzz of chess activity.

However, this piece focuses on an event which doesn’t even take place
in the tournament hall, but rather in the hotel Zeeduin a few minutes’
walk away. This is the hotel where most of the top players stay during the event.
Five years ago, study composer and enthusiast Yochanan Afek proposed having
a study solving event at Wijk aan Zee on the final Saturday of the tournament.
The idea was taken up, some modest prizes offered and since then the event has
been repeated almost every year.

The opening of the Studies Solving Competition, with Jan Timman and his
wife standing behind board one solver John Nunn. Jan contributed some very nice
endgame compositions – he has a great passion for studies – but
was playing in the Tata Steel tournament and could not compete in the Studies
Solving.

Before the start of the Study Solving Competition in Wijk aan Zee

The solvers, John Nunn in the foreground, listen attentively as the rules are
explained

Some solvers brought multiple chess sets to use during the competition

The inaugural event was won by the young Dutch player Twan Burg, who this year
was participating in the Grandmaster C group. I won the following year, and
in 2012 the Dutch again came to the fore when another young player, David Klein,
took first place. Unfortunately David was not able to defend his title as he,
like Twan Burg, was participating in the Grandmaster C group (in fact they finished
level with 7 points). Nevertheless, Yochanan had, with the support of the tournament
organisers, assembled a strong field for the 4th study solving day, including
current World Solving Champion Piotr Murdzia and the famous Russian composer
Oleg Pervakov, who is also a strong solver.

Nine studies of varying difficulty were provided and the solvers were given
three hours to find all the solutions. Here is a selection of three studies
from the competition. If you wish to duplicate the conditions of the event,
then give yourself one hour to solve all three.

White to play and win

White to play and win

White to play and win

I was on good form at Wijk, and won the event with 43 points out of the maximum
of 45, the highest score achieved in all four years, using two hours and fifteen
minutes out of the given three hours.

Here are the complete results (if the solver used less than the maximum three
hours, the time is given in brackets):

Place

Solver

Country

Points

Time

1

John Nunn

GBR

43

(2:15)

2

Piet Peelen

NED

39

3

Guus Rol

NED

37

4

Joost Michielsen

NED

36

(2:55)

5

Piotr Murdzia

POL

36

6

Oleg Pervakov

RUS

35

7

Wouter van Rijn

NED

33

(2:57)

8

Alina L’Ami

ROM

32

9

Martin van Essen

NED

30

10

Harold van der Heijden

NED

29

(2:52)

11

Dolf Wissmann

NED

28

(2:58)

12

Willem van Briemen

NED

27

13

Hans Uitenbroek

NED

26

14

Marcel Van Herck

NED

25

15

Ryszard Krolikowski

POL

23

16

Migchiel de Jong

NED

22

(2:59)

17

Evgeny Kopilov

RUS

21

(2:50)

18

René Olthof

NED

20

19-20

Jesús M. Sedante

ESP

19

19-20

Marcin Kolodzienski

POL

19

21

Harm Benak

NED

18

22

Antti Parkkinen

FIN

13

23

Jan Baljé

NED

11

(2:51)

The Dutch participants again did well, and took second to fourth places. Alina
L’Ami also performed creditably, although she couldn’t quite match
her third place from 2011. Here are the results of the first three events:

2009

1. IM Twan Burg

2. GM John Nunn

3. GM Eddy van Beers

2011

1. GM John Nunn

2. GM Eddy van Beers

3. WGM Alina L’Ami

2012

1. FM David Klein

2. IM Joost Michielsen

3. GM John Nunn

Many thanks to Yochanan Afek and the Tata Steel tournament organisers for supporting
a unique event that attracts over-the-board players as well as study experts.
It is to be hoped that what has quickly become a tradition will be repeated
next year.

The above pictures were all supplied by WGM Alina L'Ami, who you may have noticed
took part in the competition and scored a commendable eighth place (with 32/45
points). "It was really a very enjoyable tournament," she wrote us.
"I love to 'toast' my brain while trying to figure out the key to these
problems. And I am proud to say I took the ladies prize! Well...being the only
female participant did help. Actually there was no women prize. I have to study
harder and go for the men's prize."

We finish with the obligatory grandmaster astronomy image (click to enlarge):

This image is of the colliding galaxies NGC 4038 (left) and NGC 4039 (right).
The pair is commonly known as the 'Antennae Galaxies' and is around 50 million
light-years away from us. Originally these were two normal galaxies, but about
600 million years ago they began to collide. We now see them at an intermediate
stage and about 400 million years from now the galaxies will merge to form one
larger galaxy. This could be the fate of our own Milky Way galaxy when it collides
with the Andromeda galaxy about four billion years from now.

The stars within galaxies are spaced so far apart that in a galactic collision
such as this it is unlikely than even a single pair of stars will collide, but
the same is not true of the huge clouds of dust and gas within galaxies. As
they smash into one another at high speed, many of them will collapse to form
stars, a process further accelerated by the disturbing gravitational pull of
the neighbour galaxy. In the image you can also see the two 'tidal tails' which
give the Antennae galaxies their name. These tails, which now stretch far into
intergalactic space, consist of millions of stars which have been thrown out
of their parent galaxies by gravitational effects.

This image was taken using the T11 telescope of iTelescope.net,
which is the world’s premier network of Internet connected telescopes,
allowing members to take astronomical images of the night sky for the purposes
of education, scientific research and astrophotography. T11 is located under
the clear skies of New Mexico, and I used a total exposure of 85 minutes to
take this image.

Another chess grandmaster who images on iTelescope on a regular basis, is World
Champion Viswanathan Anand, who with some assistance from founder Dr Christian
Sasse captured the above image. IC 443, also known as the Jellyfish Nebula,
is a Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation Gemini, roughly 5,000
light years from Earth. Vishy is apparently interested in distant catastrophic
events.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!

"Simple yet aggressive!" Enjoy this new exciting DVD by Simon Williams. Let the famouns Grandmaster from England show you how to gain a very exciting yet well founded opening game with the London System (1.d4 d5 2.Bf4).